Superhero Pregnant Woman
Her sense of smell is ten times stronger.
And so her husband smells funny;
she rolls away from him in the bed.
She even smells funny to herself,
but cannot roll away from that.
Why couldn’t she get a more useful superpower?
Like the ability to turn invisible, or fly?
The refrigerator laughs at her from its dark corner,
knowing she will have to open it some time
and surrender to its villainous odors.
And so her husband smells funny;
she rolls away from him in the bed.
She even smells funny to herself,
but cannot roll away from that.
Why couldn’t she get a more useful superpower?
Like the ability to turn invisible, or fly?
The refrigerator laughs at her from its dark corner,
knowing she will have to open it some time
and surrender to its villainous odors.
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Disclaimer
We do not accept unsolicited submissions. American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright © 2007 by Jessy Randall. Reprinted from “A Day in Boyland,” by Jessy Randall, published by Ghost Road Press, 2007, by permission of the author. Introduction copyright © 2024 by The Poetry Foundation.